Mao Zedong
 | The neutrality of this article is disputed. |
- Mao redirects here. For other uses, see Mao (disambiguation).
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|---|---|---|
| Names | ||
| Given name | Style name | |
| Trad. | 毛澤東 | 潤芝¹ |
| Simp. | 毛泽东 | 润芝 |
| Pinyin | Máo Zédōng | Rùnzhī |
| WG | Mao Tse-tung | Jun-chih |
| IPA | /mau̯ː˧˥ tsɤ˧˥.tʊŋ˥/ | /ʐuənː˥˩ tʂI˥/ |
| Surname: Mao | ||
| ¹Originally 詠芝 (咏芝) | ||
(December 26, 1893 – September 9, 1976; Mao Tse-tung in Wade-Giles) was the chairman of the Politburo of the Communist Party of China from 1943 and the chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China from 1945 until his death. Under his leadership, the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) became the ruling party of Mainland China as the result of its victory over Chinese Nationalists, the KMT, in the Chinese Civil War. On October 1 1949, Mao declared the formation of the People's Republic of China at Tiananmen Square.
Many mainland Han Chinese respect Mao for creating a mostly unified China free of foreign domination for the first time since the Opium Wars. However, in doing so, Mao employed terror, torture, and purges to gain and consolidate power within the Red Army from the early 1930s onward, cooperated with Japanese intelligence against Chiang Kai Shek's forces during 1937-1939, and supported the Red Army by growing and distributing opium during 1941-1945. After gaining power, Mao initiated a transformation of the economic and social system through a process of collectivisation culminating in The Great Leap Forward of 1958-62. The changes in social and agricultural policies which he ordered during this period, known in China as Three Years of Natural Disasters, caused the massive famine of 1959–1961. Mao created a totalitarian one-party-state, contributed to the Sino-Soviet Split, and initiated the Cultural Revolution, which purged, tortured, and publicly humiliated millions. These millions included many of those fellow Communists who had forced Mao to end the policies that caused the famine of 1959–1961.
Mao Zedong is sometimes referred to as Chairman Mao. At the height of his personality cult, Mao was commonly known in China as the "Four Greats": "Great Teacher, Great Leader, Great Supreme Commander, Great Helmsman". Mao was an avid reader, particularly of Chinese history and it has been argued that his skill at outmanoevering his political opponents as well as his belief in the overriding importance of unifying and revolutionising China, regardless of the sacrifices imposed on his people, owed much to his understanding of Chinese imperial history. His political writings were influential in the development of Marxist thought and he also wrote poetry which retains some popularity in China.
Early life
The eldest son of four children of a moderately prosperous peasant farmer and money lender, Mao Zedong was born in the village of Shaoshan in Xiangtan county (湘潭縣), Hunan province. His ancestors had migrated from Jiangxi province during the Ming Dynasty and had pursued farming for generations.
During the 1911 Revolution he served in the Hunan provincial army. In the 1910s, Mao returned to school in Changsha, where he became an advocate of physical fitness and collective action.
After graduation from Hunan First Normal University(湖南第一师范学校) in 1918, Mao traveled with his high-school teacher and future father-in-law, Professor Yang Changji (杨昌济), to Beijing during the May Fourth Movement, when Yang held a faculty position at Peking University. Due to Yang's recommendation, he worked as an assistant in the university library (which was headed by Li Dazhao). At the same time, Mao registered as a part-time student at Peking University and sat in lectures of many leading scholars, such as Chen Duxiu, Hu Shih, and Qian Xuantong. As he was working, he read extensively, which brought him a life-long influence. Also in Beijing, he married his first wife, Yang Kaihui, a Peking University student and Yang Changji’s daughter. However, when Mao was 14, his father had arranged a marriage for him with a fellow villager, Luo [羅氏], but Mao never recognized this marriage. (See Family section below)
Instead of going abroad which was the path of many of his radical compatriots, Mao spent the early 1920s traveling in China, and finally returned to Hunan, where he took the lead in promoting collective action and labor rights.
At age 27, Mao attended the First Congress of the Communist Party of China in Shanghai on July 23 1921. Two years later he was elected to the Central Committee of the party at the Third Congress. He worked for a while in Shanghai, where the CCP was based at the time, but after the party suffered major setbacks in organizing the labor union movement and problems abounded with the alliance with the Nationalist Party, Kuomintang, (also known as KMT), he became disillusioned with the revolutionary movement and moved back to his home village of Shaoshan, apparently retired from politics. During this time he also developed depression, which plagued him occasionally for the rest of his life. However, he gained back his interest in the revolution after the violent uprisings in Shanghai and Canton in 1925, which triggered the "Avenge the Shame" movement in all of China, and moved back into active politics, moving to Canton where the KMT had its strongest base.
During the Chinese Civil War’s first KMT-CCP united front, Mao served as the director of the Peasant Training Institute of the Kuomintang. In early 1927, he was dispatched to Hunan province to report on the recent peasant uprisings in the wake of the Northern Expedition. The report that Mao produced from this investigation is considered the first important work of Maoist theory.
Political ideas
During his early political career, Mao developed his political thinking. His ideas have had a monumental impact on generations of Chinese and have significantly affected the rest of the world.
Mao sought to transform traditional Marxism into a political ideology that could be implemented in a primarily agrarian economy such as China. Marx, whom Mao read voraciously, had focused his analysis of capitalism on the industrial economies of Western Europe and, accordingly, wage labor. China at the time was more of an agrarian economy, and most of its laborers were peasants. Mao believed that the only way communism could be implemented in China was by making revolutionary changes to the social systems and the economy in the countryside.
Mao also believed that he built on the theories of Hegel and Marx to create a new theory of dialectical materialism. During this time, Mao also pursued notions like a three-stage theory of guerrilla warfare and the concept of the people's democratic dictatorship.
War and Revolution
Mao escaped the white terror in the spring and summer of 1927 and led the ill-fated Autumn Harvest Uprising at Changsha, Hunan, that autumn. Mao barely survived this mishap (he escaped his guards on the way to his execution). He and his rag-tag band of loyal guerillas found refuge in the Jinggang Mountains in southeastern China. There, from 1931 to 1934, Mao helped establish the Chinese Soviet Republic and was elected chairman. It was during this period that Mao married He Zizhen, after Yang Kaihui had been killed by KMT forces.
Mao, with the help of Zhu De, built a modest but effective army, undertook experiments in rural reform and government, and provided refuge for Communists fleeing the rightist purges in the cities. Mao's methods are normally referred to as Guerrilla warfare; but he himself made a distinction between guerrilla warfare (youji zhan) and Mobile Warfare (yundong zhan).
Under increasing pressure from the KMT encirclement campaigns, there was a struggle for power within the Communist leadership. Mao was removed from his important positions and replaced by individuals (including Zhou Enlai) who appeared loyal to the orthodox line advocated by Moscow and represented within the CPC by a group known as the 28 Bolsheviks.
Chiang Kai-shek, who had earlier assumed nominal control of China due in part to the Northern Expedition, was determined to eliminate the Communists. By October 1934, he had them surrounded, prompting them to engage in the "Long March," a retreat from Jiangxi in the southeast to Shaanxi in the northwest of China. It was during this 9600-km, year-long journey that Mao emerged as the top Communist leader, aided by the Zunyi Conference and the defection of Zhou Enlai to Mao's side. At this Conference, Mao entered the Standing Committee of the Politburo of the Communist Party of China.
From his base in Yan'an, Mao led the Communist resistance against the Japanese in the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945). Mao further consolidated power over the Communist Party in 1942 by launching the Cheng Feng, or "Rectification" campaign against rival CPC members such as Wang Ming, Wang Shiwei, and Ding Ling. Also while in Yan'an, Mao divorced He Zizhen and married the actress Lan Ping, who would become known as Jiang Qing.
During the Sino-Japanese War, Mao Zedong's strategies were opposed by both Chiang Kai-shek and the United States. The US regarded Chiang as an important ally, able to help shorten the war by engaging the Japanese occupiers in China. Chiang, in contrast, sought to build the ROC army for the certain conflict with Mao's communist forces after the end of World War II. This fact was not understood well in the US, and precious lend-lease armaments continued to be allocated to the Kuomintang. In turn, Mao spent some of the war fighting the Kuomintang for control of certain parts of China. Both the Communists and Nationalists have been criticised by academics for fighting amongst themselves rather than allying against the Imperial Japanese Army.
However, Americans sent a special diplomatic envoy, called the Dixie Mission, to the Communists by 1944. According to Edwin Moise, in Modern China: A History 2nd Edition:
- Most of the Americans were favourably impressed. The CCP seemed less corrupt, more unified, and more vigorous in its resistance to Japan than the Guomingdang. United States fliers shot down over North China...confirmed to their superiors that the CCP was both strong and popular over a broad area. In the end, the contacts with the USA developed with the CCP led to very little.
After the end of World War II, the US continued to support Chiang Kai-shek, now openly against the Communist Red Army (led by Mao Zedong) in the civil war for control of China. The US support was part of its view to contain and defeat "world communism." Likewise, the Soviet Union gave quasi-covert support to Mao (acting as a concerned neighbor more than a military ally, to avoid open conflict with the US) and gave large supplies of arms to the Chinese Communists, although newer Chinese records indicate the Soviet "supplies" were not as large as previously believed, and consistently fell short of the promised amount of aid.
On January 21 1949, Kuomintang forces suffered massive losses against Mao's Red Army. In the early morning of December 10 1949, Red Army troops laid siege to Chengdu, the last KMT-occupied city in mainland China, and Chiang Kai-shek evacuated from the mainland to Taiwan that same day.
Leadership of China
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The People's Republic of China was established on October 1, 1949. It was the culmination of over two decades of popular struggle led by the Communist Party. From 1954 to 1959, Mao was the Chairman of the PRC. During this period ,Mao was called Chairman Mao(毛主席) or the great leader Chairman Mao(伟大领袖毛主席) in most of the films made in China to sing high praise of Mao Zengdong,to to made Chinese people recongonize that counties such as the United State of American and Japan are trying to destroy the development of China,and to encourage Chinese poeple to devote themsleves to contribute to the country. Almost every Chinese had a book called the Quotation of Chairman Mao(《毛主席语录》)，and when they were debating at work or at school, they used this book to support their opinion as if this was the book of law and gospels.He took up residence in Zhongnanhai, a compound next to the Forbidden City in Beijing, and there he decreed the construction of an indoor swimming pool and other buildings. Mao often did his work either in bed or by the side of the pool during his chairmanship, according to Dr. Li Zhisui, who claimed to be his physician. (Li's book, The Private Life of Chairman Mao, has been subject to controversy.)
Following the consolidation of power, Mao launched a phase of rapid collectivization, lasting until around 1958. The CPC introduced price controls as well as a Chinese character simplification ostensibly aimed at increasing literacy. Land was taken from landowners and given to peasants and large-scale industrialization projects were undertaken.
Programs pursued during this time include the Hundred Flowers Campaign, in which Mao indicated his supposed willingness to consider different opinions about how China should be governed. Given the freedom to express themselves, liberal and intellectual Chinese began opposing the Communist Party and questioning its leadership. This was initially tolerated and even encouraged. However, after a few months, Mao's government reversed its policy and rounded up those who criticized, and were merely alleged to have criticized, the Party in what is called the Anti-Rightist Movement. Authors such as Jung Chang have alleged that the Hundred Flowers Campaign was merely a ruse to root out "dangerous" thinking.
Great Leap Forward
In 1958, Mao launched the Great Leap Forward, a plan intended as an alternative model for economic growth to the Soviet model focussing on heavy industry that was advocated by others in the party. Under this economic program, the relatively small agricultural collectives which had been formed to date were to be merged into far larger communes and many of the peasants ordered to work on massive infrastructure projects and the small-scale production of iron and steel. All private food production was banned and livestock and farm implements brought under collective ownership.
Under the Great Leap Forward, Mao and other party leaders ordered the implementation of a variety of unproven and unscientific new agricultural techniques by the new communes. Combined with the diversion of labour to steel production and infrastructure projects and the reduced personal incentives under a commune system this lead to an approximately 15% drop in grain production in 1959 followed by further 10% reduction in 1960 and no recovery in 1961. In an effort to win favour with their superiors and avoid being purged, each layer in the party hierarchy exaggerated the amount of grain produced under them and based on the fabricated success, party cadres were ordered to requisition a disproportionately high amount of the true harvest for state use primarily in the cities and urban areas but also for export. The net result, which was compounded in some areas by drought and in others by floods, was that the rural peasants were not left enough to eat and many millions starved to death in what is thought to be the largest famine in human history.
The Great Leap Forward was a disaster for China. Although the steel quotas were officially reached, almost all of that made in the countryside was useless lumps of iron, as it had been made from scrap metal in home made furnaces. According to Zhang Rongmei, a Geometry teacher in rural Shanghai during the Great Leap Forward:
- We took all the furniture, pots, and pans we had in our house, and all our neighbors did likewise. We put all everything in a big fire and melted down all the metal.
Moreover, most of the dams, canals and other infrastructure projects which millions of peasants and prisoners had been forced to toil on and in many cases die for proved useless as they had been built without the input of trained engineers, who Mao had rejected on ideological grounds.
There is a great deal of controversy over the number of deaths by starvation during the Great Leap Forward. Until the mid 1980s, when official census figures were finally published by the Chinese Government, little was known about the scale of the disaster in the Chinese countryside, as the handful of Western observers allowed access during this time had been restricted to model villages where they were deceived into believing that Great Leap Forward had been a great success. There was also an assumption that the flow of individual reports of starvation that had been reaching the West, primarily through Hong Kong and Taiwan, must be localised or exaggerated as China was continuing to claim record harvests and was a net exporter of grain through the period. Censuses were carried out in China in 1953, 1964 and 1982. The first attempt to analyse this data in order to estimate the number of famine deaths was carried out by American demographer Dr Judith Banister and published in 1984. Given the lengthy gaps between the censuses and doubts over the reliability of the data, an accurate figure is difficult to ascertain. Nevertheless Banister concluded that the official data implied that around 15 million excess deaths incurred in the China during 1958-61 and that based on her modelling of Chinese demographics during the period and taking account of assumed underreporting during the famine years, a more accurate estimate was around 30 million excess deaths. The Chinese Government has never formally rejected this total nor put forward an alternative, however subsequent official statistical reports have claimed that the original officially reported deaths were understated so that there were around 19.5 million excess deaths in the Chinese countryside during these years. As more information and data has emerged other authors, in many cases exiled disidents have put forward still higher estimates, such as the Black Book of Communism which estimated 20-40 million deaths due to the Great Leap. Chang and Halliday estimate the toll at 38 million dead, forming the majority of their estimate that Mao's policies killed 70 million Chinese during peacetime. However, some alledge that such estimates generally lump together reductions in births as well as actual deaths from starvation.
On the international front, the period was dominated by the further isolation of China due to start of the Sino-Soviet split which resulted in Khrushchev withdrawing all Soviet technical experts and aid from the country. The split was triggered by border disputes, and arguments over the control and direction of world communism, and other disputes pertaining to foreign policy. Most of the problems, regarding communist unity, resulted from the death of Stalin and his replacement by Khrushchev. Stalin had established himself as the successor of "correct" Marxist thought well before Mao controlled the CCP, and therefore Mao never challenged the suitability of any Stalinist doctrine (at least while Stalin was alive). Upon the death of Stalin, Mao believed (perhaps because of seniority) that the leadership of the "correct" Marxist doctrine would fall to him. The resulting tension between Khrushchev (at the head of a politically/militarily superior government), and Mao (believing he had a superior understanding of Marxist ideology) eroded the previous patron-client relationship between the USSR and CCP.
Cultural Revolution
Following these events, other members of the Communist Party, including Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping, decided that Mao should be removed from actual power and only remain in a largely ceremonial and symbolic role. They attempted to marginalize Mao, and by 1959, Liu Shaoqi became State President, but Mao remained Chairman. Liu and others began to look at the situation much more realistically, somewhat abandoning the idealism Mao wished for.
Facing the prospect of losing his place on the political stage, Mao responded to Liu and Deng's movements by launching the Cultural Revolution in 1966. This allowed Mao to circumvent the Communist hierarchy by giving power directly to the Red Guards, groups of young people, often teenagers, who set up their own tribunals. The Revolution led to the destruction of much of China's cultural heritage and the imprisonment of a huge number of Chinese intellectuals, as well as creating general economic and social chaos in the country. Millions of lives were ruined during this period, which is best depicted by such Chinese films as To Live and Farewell My Concubine.
It was during this period that Mao chose Lin Biao to become his successor. Subsequently it is unclear whether Lin was planning a military coup or an assassination attempt; he died trying to flee China, probably anticipating his arrest, in a suspicious plane crash over Mongolia. It was declared that Lin was planning to depose Mao, and he was posthumously expelled from the CCP. At this time, Mao lost trust in many of the top CCP figures.
In 1969, Mao declared the Cultural Revolution to be over, although the official history of the People's Republic of China marks the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976 with Mao's death. In the last years of his life, Mao was faced with declining health due to either Parkinson's disease or, according to Li Zhisui, motor neuron disease, as well as lung ailments due to smoking and heart trouble. Mao remained passive as various factions within the Communist Party mobilized for the power struggle anticipated after his death. When Mao could not swim any longer, the indoor swimming pool he had at Zhongnanhai was converted into a giant reception hall, according to Li Zhisui.
Death
Mao Zedong died at the age of 83, on September 9, 1976 at 10 minutes past midnight in Beijing. Mao had been in poor health for several years and had declined visibly for some months prior to his death. His body laid in state at the Great Hall of the People. A memorial service was held in Tiananmen Square on September 18, 1976. There was a three minute silence observed during this service.
As anticipated after Mao’s death, there was a power struggle for control of China. On one side were the leftists led by the Gang of Four, who wanted to continue the policy of revolutionary mass mobilization. On the other side were the rightists, which consisted of two groups. One was the restorationists led by Hua Guofeng who advocated a return to central planning along the Soviet model. The other was the reformers, led by Deng Xiaoping, who wanted to overhaul the Chinese economy based on market-oriented policies and to de-emphasize the role of Maoist ideology in determining economic and political policy.
Eventually, the moderates won control of the government. Deng Xiaoping defeated Hua Guofeng in a bloodless power struggle shortly afterwards.
Cult of Mao
One of the reasons Mao is most remembered is the Cult of Mao, the personality cult that was created around him. Mao presented himself as an enemy of landowners, businessmen and Western and American imperialism, as well as an ally of impoverished peasants, farmers and workers. Some argue that personality cults go against the basic ideas of Marxism. Stalin, however, circumvented this and began cultivating a cult of personality around himself and Lenin, even though Lenin expressly wished that no monuments be created after his death.
Mao said the following about cults at the 1958 Party congress in Chengdu, where he expressed support for the idea of personality cults - even ones like Stalin's:
- "There are two kinds of personality cults. One is a healthy personality cult, that is, to worship men like Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin. Because they hold the truth in their hands. The other is a false personality cult, i.e. not analysed and blind worship."
In 1962, Mao proposed the Socialist Education Movement (SEM) in an attempt to 'protect' the peasants against the temptations of feudalism and the sprouts of capitalism that he saw re-emerging in the countryside (thanks to Liu's economic reforms). Large quantities of politicised art were produced and circulated - with Mao at the centre. Numerous posters and musical compositions referred to Mao as "A red sun in the centre of our hearts" (我们心中的红太阳) and a "Savior of the people" (人民的大救星).
The Cult of Mao proved vital in starting the Cultural Revolution. China's youth had mostly been brought up during the Communist era, and they had been told to love Mao. Thus they were his greatest supporters. Their feelings for him were so strong that many followed his urge to challenge all established authority.
In October 1966, Mao's Quotations From Chairman Mao Tse-Tung (also known as the "Little Red Book") was published. Party members were encouraged to carry a copy with them and possession was almost mandatory as a criterion for membership. Over the years, Mao's image became displayed everywhere: in every home, office and shop. His quotations were included in boldface or red type in even the most obscure writings.
Legacy
Mao's legacy has produced a large amount of controversy. Some Chinese mainlanders continue to regard Mao Zedong as a great revolutionary leader, although they also recognize that he made serious mistakes in his later life. According to Deng Xiaoping, Mao was "seven parts right and three parts wrong", and his "contributions are primary and his mistakes secondary." Some, including members of the Communist Party of China, hold Mao responsible for pulling China away from its biggest ally, the USSR, in the Sino-Soviet Split. The Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution were also considered to be major disasters in his policy. If the figure of seventy million dead as a result of his policies is true, it would be an unprecedented number of victims of state violence in peace time. Other critics of Mao fault him for not encouraging birth control and for creating a demographic bump which later Chinese leaders responded to with the one child policy.
Supporters of Mao point out that before 1949, for instance, the illiteracy rate in Mainland China was 80 percent, and life expectancy was a meager 35 years. At his death, they claim illiteracy had declined to less than seven percent, and average life expectancy had increased to more than 70 years (alternative statistics also quote improvements, though not nearly as dramatic). In addition to these increases, the total population of China increased 57% to 700 million, from the constant 400 million mark during the span between the Opium War and the Chinese Civil War. Supporters also state that, under Mao's regime, China ended its "Century of Humiliation" from Western imperialism and regained its status as a major world power. They also state their belief that Mao also industrialized China to a considerable extent and ensured China's sovereignty during his rule. Some of Mao's supporters view the Kuomintang as having been corrupt and credit Mao with driving them off the Chinese mainland to Taiwan.
They also argue that the Maoist era improved women's rights by abolishing prostitution, a phenomenon that was to return after Deng Xiaoping and post-Maoist CCP leaders increased liberalization of the economy. Indeed, Mao once famously remarked that "Women hold up half the heavens".
Skeptics observe that similar gains in literacy and life expectancy occurred after 1949 in neighboring countries such as Taiwan, which was ruled by Mao's opponents, namely Chiang Kai-Shek and the Kuomintang, even though they themselves were forced to substantial repression in their own right. Some of the gains may have simply been the result of a country no longer at war, so perhaps any regime could achieve such improvements. The regime that took over in Taiwan was composed of the same people ruling the Mainland for over 20 years when life expectancy was so low, yet life expectancy there also increased.
Mao believed that "socialism is the only way out for China," because the United States and other Western countries would not allow China to join the ranks of advanced capitalism. As if to support this theory, the United States placed a trade embargo on China that lasted until Richard Nixon decided Mao had made himself a force to be reckoned with in dealing with the Soviet Union. While the Tigers obtained favorable trade terms from the United States, most Third World capitalist countries did not, and they saw nothing like the social gains in China or the economic growth of the Tigers.
There is more consensus on Mao's role as a military strategist and tactician during the Chinese Civil War and the Korean War. Even among those who find Mao's ideology to be either unworkable or abhorrent, many acknowledge that Mao was a brilliant political and military strategist - Mao's military writings continue to have a large amount of influence both among those who seek to create an insurgency and those who seek to crush one.
The ideology of Maoism has influenced many communists around the world, including third world revolutionary movements such as Cambodia's Khmer Rouge, Peru's Shining Path, the revolutionary movement in Nepal, and also claims influence of the Revolutionary Communist Party in the United States. China has moved sharply away from Maoism since Mao's death, and most people outside of China who describe themselves as Maoist regard the Deng Xiaoping reforms to be a betrayal of Mao's legacy.
In mainland China, there are those people that still consider Mao a hero in the first half of his life, but hold that he was too corrupt after gaining power. However, most Chinese liberals eschew Mao's totalitarian tactics.
Contemporary views about him in the PRC are affected by bans on some works that harshly criticise Mao. The controversial Mao: the Unknown Story, by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, provides a far less flattering picture of Mao than previous historical works do. Chang's book claims that Mao fabricated many myths about his background and youth, to enhance his image as a true "people's hero". It likewise suggests that details relevant to key events in the Long March, in particular the 1935 Battle of Luding Bridge, were falsified. Open academic discussion of Mao's life is restricted by the official "70% good, 30% bad" verdict. The Chinese government have put less emphasis on studying Mao in recent years. For example, there was hardly any state recognition of the recent 25th anniversary of Mao's death. This is a clear contrast to 1993, when the state organized numerous events and seminars commemorating Mao's 100th birthday.
In the mid-1990s, Mao Zedong's picture began to appear on all new renminbi currency from the People’s Republic of China. This is intended primarily as an anti-counterfeiting measure as Mao's face is widely recognized in contrast to the generic figures that appear in older currency.
Family
Mao Zedong had several wives which contributed to a large family. These were:
- Luo Yixiu (罗一秀, 1889-1910) of Shaoshan: married 1907 to 1910[citation needed]
- Yang Kaihui (杨开慧, 1901-1930) of Changsha: married 1921 to 1927, executed by the Kuomintang in 1930
- He Zizhen (贺子珍, 1910-1984) of Jiangxi: married May 1928 to 1939
- Jiang Qing: (江青, 1914-1991), married 1939 to Mao's death
His ancestors were:
- Wen Qimei (文七妹, 1867-1919), mother
- Mao Yichang (毛贻昌, 1870-1920), father, courtesy name Mao Shunsheng (毛顺生)
- Mao Enpu (毛恩普), paternal grandfather
He had several siblings:
- Mao Zemin (毛泽民, 1895-1943), younger brother
- Mao Zetan (毛泽覃, 1905-1935), younger brother
- Mao Zehong, sister (executed by the Kuomintang in 1930)
- Mao Zedong's parents altogether had six sons and two daughters. Two of the sons and both daughters died young, leaving the three brothers Mao Zedong, Mao Zemin, and Mao Zetan. Like all three of Mao Zedong's wives, Mao Zemin and Mao Zetan were communists. Like Yang Kaihui, both Zemin and Zetan were killed in warfare during Mao Zedong's lifetime.
Note that the character ze (泽) appears in all of the siblings' given names. This is a common Chinese naming convention.
He had several children:
- Mao Anying (毛岸英): son to Yang, married to Liu Siqi (刘思齐), who was born Liu Songlin (刘松林), killed in action during the Korean War
- Mao Anqing (毛岸青): son to Yang, married to Shao Hua (邵华), son Mao Xinyu (毛新宇)
- Li Min (李敏): daughter to He, married to Kong Linghua (孔令华), son Kong Ji'ning (孔继宁), daughter Kong Dongmei (孔冬梅)
- Li Na (李讷): daughter to Jiang (whose birth given name was Li), married to Wang Jingqing (王景清), son Wang Xiaozhi (王效芝)
Sources suggest that Mao did have other children during his revolutionary days; in most of these cases the children were left with peasant families because it was difficult to take care of the children while focusing on revolution. Two English researchers who retraced the entire Long March route in 2002-2003[1]located a woman who they believe might well be a missing child abandoned by Mao to peasants in 1935[2]. Ed Jocelyn and Andrew McEwen[3] hope a member of the Mao family will respond to requests for a DNA test.
Writings
Mao is the attributed author of Quotations From Chairman Mao Tse-Tung, known in the West as the "Little Red Book": this is a collection of extracts from his speeches and articles. He wrote several other philosophical treatises, both before and after he assumed power. These include:
- On Practice; 1937
- On Contradiction; 1937
- On New Democracy; 1940
- On Literature and Art; 1942
- On the Correct Handling of the Contradictions Among the People; 1957
- On Guerilla Warfare.
- "In Memory of Doctor Bethune"
- "The Foolish Man Who Removed A Mountain"
- "Serve the People"
Mao also wrote poetry, mainly in the ci and shi forms.
See also
- Famous military writers
- Mao (game)
- Mausoleum of Mao Zedong
- Poetry of Mao Zedong
- Mao: The Unknown Story
- Nixon in China, an opera by the American composer John Adams, about U.S. President Richard Nixon's visit to Mao.
External links
- Mao Zedong Biography From Spartacus Educational
- The Mao Zedong Reference Archive at marxists.org
- The Encyclopedia of Marxism gives a Trotskyist view of Mao's life. Parts of this article are based on it.
- The Encyclopedia of Marxism gives a Marxist (Trotskyist) view of Mao Zedong Thought.
- Collected Works of Mao Zedong at the Maoist Internationalist Movement
- Mao Zedong portal from the PLA Daily; includes some photos and poetry
- Mao Zedong on propaganda posters Set of propaganda paintings showing Mao Zedong as the great leader of China.
- MIM Maoist Internationalist Movement, a sect of Maoism (their theories are NOT the same as all Maoists)
- Other Chinese leaders
- CNN profile
- Mao: Ten Parts Bad, No Parts Good by Gwynne Dyer, a critical opinion on Mao
- The Marriages of Mao Tse-tung
Audio & Video
- Interview part 1 (RealPlayer)
- Interview part 2 (RealPlayer)
- Mao declares the founding of the PRC - 852 Kb ASF file. (In Chinese with Chinese subtitles)
Reference
- Asia Source biography
- Li Zhi-Sui. The Private Life of Chairman Mao, 1996.
- Jasper Becker. Hungry Ghosts : Mao's Secret Famine, 1998.
- Phillip Short. Mao: A Life, 1999.
- Jung Chang and Jon Halliday. Mao : The Unknown Story, Knopf (October 18, 2005), hardcover, ISBN 0679422714